Peta Murgatroyd almost sent Maksim Chmerkovskiy a "goodbye text."
Peta Murgatroyd on learning her husband Maks was stuck in Ukraine
The 35-year-old dancer - who has been married to her fellow 'Dancing with the Stars' professional since 2017 - almost had a "heart attack" when she heard her husband was trapped in Ukraine after Russian president Vladimir Putin had launched the ongoing military invasion on the country at the end of February.
She said: " To get the phone call and to see him frantically packing his bags trying to get out of the hotel was just like, I had a heart attack nearly. I had to sit myself down and calm down for him!"
Maksim has since escaped the war-torn capital of Kyiv and returned to his home in the US but Peta - who has five-year-old son Shai with her husband - went on to explain that the short time he was stuck there after filming a dance project when the conflict broke out was "absolutely life changing" and she had almost prepared for the worst.
She told New You magazine: "And then the next eight days [that Maks was there] were life changing. Absolutely life changing. mean, I literally wrote him a text, almost a goodbye text like if something happens."
Since his return to the United States, Maks has ventured to Poland those affected by the conflict in its neighbouring country but recently admitted he is still working on finding some sort of "normality" since his return.
He said: "The fact that we’re here, the culminating moment is like, how do you get back to the normality of it all? What’s the new normal? For me, it doesn’t exist without the association of the war that is ongoing. It hasn’t subsided. It’s just the relocation of some things. I was lucky that Peta was with me on this. I made that commitment. We are working with Barnova 27, my organization. We’re pushing out, we’re working on other ways of getting other things into the country and what’s needed. We’re working on developing livable towns, makeshift towns that can maybe serve as something else; try to attract technology, 3D printing and so on."
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